Customer Rating: 3.75 of 5 (4 total reviews)

Some Good but Not Enough

There is a lot of good information in this book, and it is much more readable than the specifications. Putman is able to give meaning to a terse and deep standard.

However, there is almost no practical application in her book. The running example is left for a hundred pages at a time. There is little to demonstrate how an architecture affects software design and code.

There is also very little to tie concepts together. When finished with the book, I didn't have an overall view of RM-ODP: just lots of little views.

This is the only book available on RM-ODP, so I recommend this book with that in mind. However, I hope Putman is able to revise this work into a more practicle and cohesive form.

It's a shame this is the only available RM-ODP book.

This book will prevent all but the hardiest of souls from adopting RM-ODP, which is a shame since RM-ODP presents so much that is useful to the architect.

You are much better off learning RM-ODP from the ITU Reccomendations than this book.

If you are already familiar with RM-ODP this book does contain some useful nuggets of information--if you are willing to dig hard enough to find them.

Ms. Putnam's book is disorganized and prolix. It is appalling that she quotes herself in the front matter. "Architechting with RM-ODP" is neither of use to the beginner or valuable as a reference to the practitioner.

VERY comprehensive...

Janis has done a wonderful job of explaining all the key concepts and elements of RM-ODP. Her diagrams are clear, the references are numerous, and you will definitely have a ton of confidence about the RM-ODP once you're finished with the book. I revisited the ISO standards once I finished Putman's book and found the information much more meaningful. Some drawbacks: References to the Zachman Framework (interesting, but that work really didn't move forward appreciably), References to Boehm's Spiral Model (Barry's work is spectacular, but referencing the Rational Unified Process, which is much more mainstream, would have been of great benefit to the reader), and References to some technologies that have disappeared (TINA, for instance). All in all though, don't let that discourage you from getting this book. If you're using RM-ODP, this is THE book to have.